The present invention relates to a sports equipment rack for mounting sports equipment to the exterior of a vehicle. More particularly, the invention provides an extendable cargo cage-type sports equipment rack with a positionally adjustable load bar that offers improved resistance to corrosion.
Sports equipment racks for mounting sports equipment to the exterior of vehicles are becoming increasingly adaptable. Many racks now allow a variety of accessories, such as various mounts adapted for securing particular items of sports equipment, to be selectively attached to or removed from the rack so a user can customize the rack for a desired use. These racks typically include a pair of load bars mounted across the vehicle at a suitable location, such as the vehicle roof, to which accessories for securing sports equipment to the rack may be attached.
One type of accessory is a cargo cage rack. Cargo cage racks are basket- or cage-like structures that are adapted for carrying bulk cargo items. They generally include a floor structure, and a side structure that extends around the perimeter of the floor structure vertically above the floor structure. The side structure sometimes takes the form of front, back and side rails. Cargo can be placed on the floor structure, and is prevented from falling out of the cage by the side structure. Though cargo cage racks are available as accessories for many rack systems, they also may be mounted directly to a vehicle roof.
When a cargo cage rack is mounted as an accessory to the load bars of another sports equipment rack, it often substantially covers the underlying load bars. This may limit a user""s ability to mount other types of sports equipment mounts to the load bars. To avoid this limitation, the front and back rails of the cage may be formed from members with an identical circumference and cross-sectional shape as the underlying load bars. This allows any sports equipment mounts designed for attachment to the underlying load bars to be attached to the front and back rails of the cargo cage. In other words, the front and back rails of the cargo cage may themselves be load bars.
Generally, the size of a cargo cage rack that has front and rear load bars may be restricted by considerations involving the types of sports equipment to be mounted to the load bars. For example, if the load bars are spaced too far apart, the distance between the bars may be too long to mount a bicycle with ordinary bicycle mounts. However, if the load bars are too close together, the cargo cage rack may be too small for some cargo loads.
To solve the problem of carrying capacity, extension pieces are available for some cargo cage racks that increase the size of the cage. However, the use of an extension may position the front and back load bars of the cargo cage rack too far apart for mounting some articles of sports equipment. Furthermore, locations must be provided on the cargo cage rack for attaching the extension. Because the cargo cages are often made from tubular metal, these attachment points may provide locations at which moisture can get inside of the tubular metal of the cargo cage rack frame, possibly increasing the susceptibility of the rack to corrosion.